


does it really matter, at the end of it all?

by fab_ia



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, bad family relationships, honestly idk, i dont know when i wrote this ngl, kepler trying to work everythin g out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15541086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fab_ia/pseuds/fab_ia
Summary: “how are you still so wild?”“don’t know. so long as it’s not an issue, sir, does it really matter?”“no,” warren says quietly. “i don’t suppose it does.”





	does it really matter, at the end of it all?

warren wonders, briefly, in the pause between his lips touching the others, what the  _ point  _ of it all is. why it’s such an  _ issue  _ who he wants to kiss, to hold, to wake up beside in the morning. they aren’t unfamiliar thoughts- he’s asked himself the questions a thousand times over- but he can’t deny that they’re unwelcome when he was midway through kissing the prettiest guy he’s ever seen in all his life. 

 

“you’re distracted,” he breathes, voice soft and steady even though he looks about as wrecked as warren feels. “you okay, warren?”

 

“yeah,” warren lies, words rolling off his tongue like water over the rocks; his dad’s whiskey over ice. “yeah, i’m fine. the bedroom’s this way.”

 

it’s a familiar pattern- they fall into each other, warren reminds him where the bedroom is, and they spend the night together before one or both of them have to leave for work, or class, the next morning. 

 

the guy- matt, warren reminds himself through the kiss-haze and the tipsiness- giggles something about him being  _ such  _ a gentleman and warren quips back with something about the south. no, the South, with a capital, where he’d seen a boy beaten up for looking too long at another in the locker room and he’d thanked god that it hadn’t been him. not that there weren’t  _ rumours _ , of course, normal boys don’t get through through thirteen years of school and come out of it without bragging about the girls they’d slept with. 

 

warren had, in fact, known he was gay since 89, when he’d woken up after a dream about his history professor with red cheeks and hadn’t been able to meet the mans eyes without blushing for a week. 

 

matt kisses him again when they get to his bedroom. warren smiles his most genuine smile as matt presses him into the striped sheets with his lips against warren’s jaw. 

 

“you need to redecorate,” matt says before he sucks a mark into the skin of warren’s neck. 

 

“yeah?” warren pants, breathless from the heat of it all. “you wanna help me pick stuff out then, that it?”

 

“wouldn’t mind,” matt grins, before shifting on the bed and doing what they’d done most nights since their  _ thing  _ started. 

 

the sheets are still sticky when matt curls up beside him, kisses him and then closes his eyes as warren throws an arm across his waist. it’s so goddamn  _ intimate  _ that warren feels like he’s in fucking love, for a moment, especially when matt hums sleepily because warren started playing with his hair. 

 

fuck. fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.  _ fuck.  _

 

_ yeah _ , he thinks as he falls asleep.  _ that sums this up.  _

 

years of cadets and boy scouts conditioned warren to wake up at more or less the crack of dawn. it’s one of his favourite times of day. 

 

that is, of course, when his phone isn’t lighting up to inform him of twenty-seven missed calls from his mother, eight from his father, and something like fourteen texts from his sister. 

 

_ fuck.  _

 

he knows exactly what that’s about. that  _ fucking  _ picture that he’d put on  _ fucking  _ facebook because he was a  _ fucking  _ idiot who forgot his  _ fucking parents  _ could see his profile. 

 

matt, clearly, can sense when he’s freaking out, because he shifts in his sleep and presses his face a little more against warren’s skin only to let out a soft and sleepy sound. it sounds so gentle that it strikes down to warren’s core and he feels sick, for a moment, before he turns to press a soft kiss to his head. 

 

“don’t wake up,” warren breathes as he slowly gets out of bed (resolutely not looking behind him as matt whines and rolls onto his pillow), grabs his phone and heads to the living room to call his parents back. 

 

he can’t, though. he calls his sister first. she tells him that he’s an idiot but she doesn’t hate him- if anything, she admits to him that she’s thought about kissing girls far more than any straight girl would and it’s… nice. to talk to her and know she understands, at least. 

 

“it’ll be okay, warren,” she says just before he hangs up. “it’s not like you’re a different person now. you’re just… not pretending anymore.”

 

his mother cries. 

 

his father…

 

he’d rather not think about him.  

 

matt eventually wakes up, coming through to the living room and asking what’s wrong as soon as he sees warren bent over himself on the couch, face in his hands. warren doesn’t bother replying, but he looks up at him and takes his hand to pull him down and sit together in silence. warren’s phone buzzes again and he shudders, not bothering to stop matt from reaching out to take it. 

 

“this is your  _ dad _ ?” matt asks, horrified. “all- all because he found out that you’re- “

 

“he doesn’t like that i’m gay,” warren sniffs. “sorry. fuck, matt, i’m so sorry.”

 

matt kisses his forehead and says nothing. 

 

ten years later, more or less, warren checks facebook and discovers that matt’s wedding was on the third of july and that he’d married someone with supportive parents after adopting a child together. because of course he did. because that's what matt always deserved. a  _ real  _ family. 

 

marcus cutter tilts his head at him, smile playing at the corners of his mouth- a new face for a boss warren’s known for six years- and asks  _ what’s wrong?  _ in his most saccharine voice. dripping with honey, and spun sugar, caramel and syrup. warren shakes his head and gives only two words in reply. 

 

“nothing, sir.”

 

cutter smiles. he smiles and smiles even as warren pulls him into a kiss, into bed, into his arms afterwards. 

 

“this isn’t a very good way to get a promotion, warren,” cutter points out, trailing his fingers across the edges of a gunshot wound on warren’s thigh. “do you…  _ want  _ a promotion? i thought you were happy with your job now.”

 

“i’m happy with it,” warren says, eyes open and looking into cutter’s now-messy hair. “i’m happy with my job. i love my job.”

 

cutter only hums in reply, shifting a little and pressing his cheek against warren’s chest. 

 

warren wakes up like that, too- cutter’s face pressed against his chest as he lets out soft snores. it’s jarring, because he knows for a fact that’s how matt used to sleep, and the fact it’s cutter is just  _ odd.  _

 

ten years after his first boyfriend, but warren’s still reminded of him every single day.

 

the way cutter wakes is no different- slowly, with a sigh, scrunching up his nose a little before he sits up and yawns, eventually saying “good morning, warren” with the only genuine smile warren's ever seen on his face. and the voice, the sleep-slurred, lazy voice that cutter adopts when his throat is still thick with sleep, that's just like matt’s, too. 

 

warren swears under his breath and lets cutter kiss him once more before he settles down to get a little more sleep. 

 

two years after that is jacobi, with bright eyes and a smile that's more of a smirk that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners in a way that makes warren do a double take the first time he sees it. 

 

their first kiss is under fireworks, with jacobi's hands on warren’s cheeks and their lips together, nothing but gentleness between them. jacobi's fingertips, warren notes, are cold, likely due to his fondness for fingerless gloves. that's a fact which makes warren smile a little, just to himself, because it's difference from matt- he always preferred full gloves. 

 

“god,” jacobi breathes, “i've wanted to do this for so long.”

 

when he says that, warren freezes, but forces a smile anyway and kisses jacobi again, because that's what matt said the first time  _ they  _ kissed, and it hurt more than he expected to hear the words from someone else. 

 

jacobi’s pretty- hes  _ so  _ fucking pretty, dark eyelashes and hair, soft lips and a spark in his eyes that’s a sign of something smart, bright, intelligent, whatever word warren wants to use that day. his hands are rough, though, and he’s got scars that someone barely thirty shouldn’t have. burns and narrow lines that only make him laugh when warren touches them. he’s never known someone so openly vulnerable as jacobi, never known anyone with so much passion for chaos. 

 

“how are you still so wild?” warren finds himself asking one night, looking up at the ceiling of their hotel room with jacobi hunched over next to him working on something in one of his less-battered notebooks. it’s got a rainbow on the front, a little singed sticker that warren glances at and thinks of everything his father told him before he remembers what he’s always asked himself-  _ does it matter who you like to kiss? _

 

“don’t know,” jacobi says, unwittingly repeating warren’s question to himself. “so long as it’s not an  _ issue _ , sir, does it really matter?”

 

_ does it? _

 

“no,” warren says quietly. “i don’t suppose it does.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey! thank you for reading! as ever, i'm @sciencematter on tumblr and i!! actually have commissions open right now!! you can find my post about it here: http://sciencematter.tumblr.com/post/176443491119/sciencematters-writing-commissions-hey-everyone


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